Lawrence and Twenty-First-Century Film

Abstract

This chapter examines five film adaptations of Lawrence’s works released between 2002 and 2014. Two films (Odour of Chrysanthemums and Lady Chatterley et l'homme des bois) exemplify surface fidelity by preserving Lawrence's setting, plot, and character. The three remaining films (The Rocking Horse Winner, The Blind Man, and The White Stocking) seriously disturb the textual surface. This juxtaposition of strategies reveals that neither is superior. Both have resulted in remarkable films preserving Lawrence's substance even through the process of transformation. The contemporary Lawrence films illuminate his writing as both prophetic and cinematic. The three transformative films verify that his work anticipates the preoccupations and even the events of recent times. All five films reveal Lawrence as a cinematic writer despite his professed dislike of film. The intensely visual scenes all throughout his fiction prefigure cinematic techniques developed long after his death.